Welcome to the Real World
by Star.girl115
Summary: Set somewhere in the later years of BTVS probably after Chosen , Buffy finds herself in a hospital. Should she accept her fate? Is that even possible, with the appearance of an odd patient?...definate pairing later on...


_**Chapter 1**_

_Set somewhere around the end of Buffy, after Chosen -unless I decide to change it __J__. Centres around Buffy in a hospital full of secrets. She won't be the only character and definite pairings later on. If you like it, please review and I will add more._

Buffy Summers watched numbly as the minute hand of the clock on her bedside table moved forwards. It was an agonizingly slow movement; for a second, she wondered if the clock was broken. She sighed but didn't move her gaze. She watched the second hand jerk around the face of the clock, and closed her eyes in exasperation. When she opened her eyes, only a few seconds had passed. A while later, the minute hand pushed itself forward and clicked. A new minute began, with the same lazy speed.

Buffy shut her eyes again and nestled into her bed. She felt uncomfortable in her clothes- her extra large plain white shirt, which swamped her petite frame, her plain black, knee length pants, and her shoes, plain black flip flops. She wriggled her toes and wished that she had warmer shoes. She wasn't allowed shoes with shoelaces here; that was one of the rules. The pants she wore were loose, because the drawstring had been removed long ago. Her limp, blonde hair was loose, and she wore no jewellery whatsoever. Around her wrist, there was a hospital bracelet- a short, thick strip of plastic (with an ID number she could recite off by heart ). There was a hard, black tag attached onto the strip, with a tiny light bulb that glowed white whenever she was travelling between rooms. She assumed it was a tracker, to make sure she didn't go anywhere she was not supposed to. The thought was almost comical; she had no idea how to get out of this place. Besides, what trouble could she cause?

The room she lay in was basic. Everything was white. The floor was made of the kind of springy material that can be found in children's parks: the walls were padded. There were no windows- there was a bed, in the centre of the room, with a simple block base and a regular mattress. The pillow was covered in plastic sheeting, and the sheets were made of incredibly strong material, so that it couldn't be ripped in any way. A plain table sat beside the bed, decorated only by the black clock.

Buffy opened her eyes one last time. Barely a minute had passed.

She must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew, she heard the clicking and thumping which told her that somebody was about to enter her room. She wanted to sleep some more, but she forced herself to sit up on her bed, to see her first visitor in a few hours.

After a minute or so, a panelled door slid open, and Dr. Smith entered the room, with two large bodyguard flanking each side of her.

Dr. Smith wasn't young- she was about the same age as Giles. She had short black hair, and like all of the other staff, she wore the plain white doctors robes, with the emblem on the breast pocket. She carried a clipboard, a pen, and she wore a weary smile.

"Good morning, Buffy." She stared blankly at Dr. Smith. Her face was dead and void of any emotion.

Dr. Smith smiled uneasily and moved closer. The bodyguards mimicked her movements.

"So. How are you feeling today?"

Buffy shrugged tiredly. Her hair fell over her face, and she pushed it away, tucking it behind her ears tiredly.

The quiet reply seemed to satisfy Dr. Smith. She scribbled something down onto her clipboard and looked up.

"Are you feeling any better?" She asked, but already started scribbling before waiting for an answer that she knew wouldn't come. It took longer this time, and the bodyguards began to shift impatiently.

"Well," Dr. Smith coughed, "Everything seems to be in order. Dr Mable will be along later to check on you, before the meal. Your individual session is at six o'clock." She nodded briefly at her patient and scrutinized her for only a mere second longer. She stood up silently, and gathered her things, straightening them in a pile in her arms and signalling at the bodyguards, who nodded at her shortly. The door slid open and they exited, and once again, Buffy was alone in the plain white room.

_Tick-tock_. _Tick-tock_. _Tick-tock_. Minutes passed. _Click_. Hours. Buffy lay on her bed, and stared up at the ceiling, which was just as pale as the rest of the room. She searched for any signs of the numerous cameras that she knew were filming her 24-7. Every second of her life… her existence here, on film. Every second of it would be searched and watched again and again. She blinked.

And there it was; the clicking and the thumping. She sat up wearily and waited for the door to slide open, for a different doctor to enter, flanked with different bodyguards.

Dr Mable was male, and the same age as Dr Smith. She carried the same clipboard, and a tray, which she lay down on the floor.

"So. How are you feeling today?" Buffy shrugged. Dr Smith scribbled on her clipboard. "Are you feeling any better?" No reply. Dr. Smith was already scribbling. With one last glance at the deposited tray, she left, just as soon as she arrived.

The same questions. Always the same questions. Always.

Buffy investigated the tray. There was a plastic bowl of soup, like always, with a plastic cup of water, and three precisely chopped pieces of celery, each exactly the same size. There was a tiny plastic tub, which contained 3 pale white tablets.

Buffy drank the soup, ate the celery, and with a gulp of water, swallowed the tablets. She had been told that the tablets provided her with iron, and she had frankly been too tired to argue.

An hour later, she was escorted through the twisting corridors by not the usual four guards that accompanied Doctors, but a total of six guards. They always acted warily around her, but they all bore something of a smug confidence. Maybe they knew that Buffy didn't have the strength to fight back. Maybe they knew that some days, she woke up with a feeling of dread, as she struggled to remember facts that had once been so easy to her. Names and faces of people blurred in her mind, and mingled with the faces of her dreams. Sometimes, she even struggled to remember her own name.

She arrived at the room and entered with the guards. It was, like all of the other rooms, typically plain and white, and minimally furnished. On a chair, sat a middle- aged woman, with a pale face and long brown hair. This was Dr Clarke.

"Hello, Buffy." She greeted her warmly and waved a hand at the opposite chair. Buffy sat, and immediately began fiddling with the hem of her shirt.

There was a silence as Dr Clarke gathered her papers.

"So," She began," How has your day been?" Buffy didn't reply. Dr. Clarke smiled and probed for further information. "Good? Bad? Indifferent?"

Buffy sighed.

"The same as every day." She said, and her voice was rusty with hours of unspoken words. She cleared her throat. It echoed of the walls and her words hung in the air.

Dr. Clarke seized upon the small piece of information.

"And you're feeling the same?"

Buffy nodded. "Exactly the same."

"And…what about your nightmares? Have your nightmares stopped?"

Buffy blinked. "My…nightmares?" She paused as she remembered her last session, when she had tried to satisfy the curious Dr. Clarke with the news about her haunting dreams. She had almost forgotten about it. "Yes. Yes they've stopped." It was an obvious lie, and Dr Clarke could clearly tell, because she studied the girl in front of her intently for a minute or so, before scribbling something quickly onto her clipboard. Buffy waited for her to be finished. When the Doctor was finished, she glanced at the watch around her wrist and tucked her pencil into the breast pocket of her coat.

"I'm going to recommend to the other Doctors that you should be moved onto three meals a day now, instead of two." She paused. " As your nightmares have stopped. Yes?"

Buffy nodded nervously.

"Well. I think we're finished." She signalled to the bodyguards, who stood and waited for Buffy to do the same. They surrounded her in the usual formation, and ushered her through the opening door.

"Goodbye, Buffy." Dr. Clarke called, and waited until she was alone. When the door had slid closed again, she strode across the room and pressed her palm against the wall opposite her seat. The system recognised her fingerprint and a hidden door slid wide open, revealing a busy computer suite, that was completely undetectable to anyone who wasn't aware it was there.

There were about fifteen computers, and each one was monitoring the rooms for individual evaluation. Dr. Clarke strode over to computer 4, and crouched beside the man who constantly monitored the room that Buffy had just vacated.

"Did you see that?" She asked the man quietly. He removed his headphones and nodded.

"I heard. She told a lie!" His voice was full of speculation and wonder. Dr Clarke watched the other small camera footage on his screen, which showed the guards escorting Buffy around the corner and out of view.

"It's incredible." There was a distinct amount of reluctant respect in her voice, and she coughed. "It's only natural, of course. We're going to increase her number of meals every day, and her number of individual sessions." She straightened up, and brushed her hands on her white coat. "We need to keep an eye on that one."

Buffy sighed as her feet carried her back to her room. She could barely determine the way- each corridor looked the same, each door expertly hidden in the pale wall could have led to her room. Only the guards, walking around her, seemed to know where they were going.

They had walked for a few minutes now, and they had reached a dead end. Buffy waited as the burliest guard registered his handprint to unlock the door. Buffy waited and stared down towards the last door at the end of the passage. Buffy had never noticed it before. But she noticed it now. Something captured her attention. Something so out of place it actually shocked her.

The door was closed, but the screen that usually covered the window was up. Buffy could see into the pale room. That was how she saw the woman. She was clearly a patient; she wore the same clothes as Buffy. There seemed to be something underneath her large white shirt though- it looked like a green tank top. Buffy wondered how she had gotten away with that- she couldn't have hidden it from the administrators, could she? The girl had skin a paler shade of the colour of milk chocolate and hair a dark shade of brown, which seemed to be braided partially at the top. Her right hand was clasped around her throat. The action caught Buffy's attention- everything about the girl caught her attention. She knew that she wasn't the only patient here. She heard them, heard people talking about them, about there behaviour, there progress. She spent a great deal of time wondering about these other people. She knew nothing about them and for some reason, she couldn't remember even asking about them. She wondered how many of them there were, confined in the white, padded cells. She had never seen one, until now. But what especially caught her attention, was that she know that she had seen this girl before. It wasn't possible, but she just knew that she had. She was so familiar it was strain not to be able to remember who exactly she was. It felt like the fact was drowning inside her head; every time the name, the identity of this person popped up to the surface of the water, it was pushed back down again under the water.

The door to her room was finally opened, and the guards ushered her in. She turned back desperately to look at the window, but the girl was gone.


End file.
